Showing 2060 posts tagged internet
American ISPs are now hated even more than airlines
Major Internet service providers in the United States have long taken a beating in customer satisfaction surveys, but the latest survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index has the grimmest news yet for American ISPs: They now have the lowest customer satisfaction ranking of any industry in America, worse than even airlines, health insurance companies and gas stations. The survey shows that American consumers are particularly unhappy with ISPs’ call center service, with the variety of Internet plans they offer and with their quality of online video streaming.
Comcast lay at the very bottom of the American ISP customer satisfaction heap, with an overall score of just 62 out of 100. It was followed closely by Time Warner Cable, which had an overall score of 63, and CenturyLink, which had an overall score of 64. In fact, the only major American ISP to score above a 70 on the ACSI this year was Verizon FiOS, which posted a score of 71.
» via Yahoo! News
Police Raid School Teacher for Uploading History Book for Students
A teacher received a huge shock last week after uploading a copy of a book to his website that offers free educational resources for students. The Latvian publisher behind the work, a $4.00 history book, complained to the authorities which resulted in the teacher being raided by the police. During interrogation the teacher learned that his mistake could cost him dearly – two years in jail, forced labor, or a fine.
» via TorrentFreak
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We must concede that though we can maintain the paths of URIs over the lifetime of a service, most domain names are inevitably ephemeral. A two year registration to host a joke, a fifteen year registration to build a company. All will be resold.
What to do? We need to not fight the fragility. We need to look at the very heart of the web, the directory that connects the names of our services to the servers they run on, and we need to apply the concept of the Wayback Machine to it. We need temporal DNS, maintainable by librarians to keep the domains of the past connected to their archived futures. Your DNS provider as Time Lord*; rather than searching for what Geocities was like, picking a date at the DNS level could route all of your internet traffic through 1998.
”(via jonathan-deamer)
Kids access porn sites at 6, begin flirting online at 8
Kids start watching porn from as early as the age of 6, and begin flirting on the Internet from the age of 8, according to a survey of over 19,000 parents worldwide.
What’s more, kids are accessing instant messaging and computer games at a much younger age than just a few years ago. At the extreme, 3.45% of kids covered in the analysis used Instant Messaging to chat with friends while 2% of computer game addicts were just 5 years old.
» via USA Today
House unanimously votes for government-free Internet
The House on Tuesday unanimously approved legislation reaffirming U.S. policy as one that supports an Internet that is controlled by stakeholders, not governments.
In a 413-0 vote, members passed H.R. 1580, which once again signals the support of Congress for the continued development of the Internet without guidance from any single government or a collection of governments.
“As every aspect of our daily lives has become hyperconnected, some people on the cutting edge of tech are trying their best to push it back a few feet. Keeping their phone in their pocket. Turning off their home Wi-Fi at night or on weekends. And reading books on paper, rather than pixels.”
ABC to Live-Stream Its Shows via App
This week ABC will quietly revolutionize its app for iPhones and iPads with a button called “live.” Users around New York and Philadelphia will be able to live-stream all the programming from ABC’s local stations there, the first time that any major broadcaster has turned on such a technology.
The functionality will be featured at ABC’s upfront presentation for advertisers on Tuesday. It is, among other things, an attempt to keep up with the rapidly changing expectations of television viewers.
It also reflects the increasing role that subscriber fees play in the broadcasting business: the live stream will be available only to paying subscribers of cable and satellite providers, even though the stations’ signals are available free over the public airwaves.
» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)
“The 14-year-old allegedly lay on the floor for several minutes and then — at least according to police — helped his mom with her Web search.”
House to reaffirm need to keep Internet free of government control
The House next week will pass legislation reaffirming that it is U.S. policy to keep the government out of the business of managing the Internet.
Early in the week, members will vote on H.R. 1580, which states simply that the policy of the U.S. is to “preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet.”
The bill, from Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), finds that the Internet must be secure and free from government control. It also opposes international attempts to go in the opposite direction.
Obama May Back F.B.I. Plan to Wiretap Web Users
The Obama administration, resolving years of internal debate, is on the verge of backing a Federal Bureau of Investigation plan for a sweeping overhaul of surveillance laws that would make it easier to wiretap people who communicate using the Internet rather than by traditional phone services, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, has argued that the bureau’s ability to carry out court-approved eavesdropping on suspects is “going dark” as communications technology evolves, and since 2010 has pushed for a legal mandate requiring companies like Facebook and Google to build into their instant-messaging and other such systems a capacity to comply with wiretap orders. That proposal, however, bogged down amid concerns by other agencies, like the Commerce Department, about quashing Silicon Valley innovation.
While the F.B.I.’s original proposal would have required Internet communications services to each build in a wiretapping capacity, the revised one, which must now be reviewed by the White House, focuses on fining companies that do not comply with wiretap orders. The difference, officials say, means that start-ups with a small number of users would have fewer worries about wiretapping issues unless the companies became popular enough to come to the Justice Department’s attention.
» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)
